College Hill Alliance celebrates progress on College Hill Corridor

College Hill Alliance celebrates progress on College Hill Corridor

Two local bands headlined the College Hill Alliance's celebration of progress in the College Hill Corridor Wednesday night. (Sean Franklin)

Two local bands headlined the College Hill Alliance's celebration of progress in the College Hill Corridor Wednesday night. (Sean Franklin)

People filled the Cox Capitol Theatre Wednesday night to celebrate a huge part of Macon--the College Hill Corridor.

Two local bands headlined the College Hill Alliance's celebration of progress in the College Hill Corridor Wednesday night. (Sean Franklin)

MACON, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT) - The Cox Theatre was filled tonight with people who want to celebrate a huge part of Macon--the College Hill Corridor.

The Corridor is an area of land stretching from Riverside Drive to Mercer University, covering most of downtown Macon.

Jessica Walden's opening remarks tonight asked the crowd to stand up if they had ever eaten in the College Hill Corridor, if they lived in the corridor, or if they had just had a good time in the corridor at some point.

Nearly every person was standing.

And that's the kind of connection tonight's celebration wanted to highlight.

And that's exactly what The College Hill Alliance did Wednesday night.

A live band and lots of food and fellowship headlined what would've been a simple community update on the progress of the College Hill Corridor.

"Live music? That's a big thing," said Wozniak. "Free drinks, free food, that always gets--especially college students to come. It's another event that we can go to and sort of gather and have fun and sort of de-stress."

More than 150 people attended, including Mercer students, and enjoyed music from two local bands.

"Tonight is the College Hill Corridor's report to the community," said Walden. "So what we're doing is celebrating our successes and updating the master plan for the college hill corridor."

Jessica Walden of the College Hill Alliance showed the main message through a video detailing how the revitalization of Macon has changed the city for the good.

"Whether you have attended our events, eaten at some of the local businesses at Mercer Village or in the Corridor," said Walden. "This night is really about community. It truly is. How many times do we get to stop what we're doing and celebrate being a community that is really good at accomplishing like we have in the College Hill Corridor?"

"It's not only fixing sort of making more events available, making more opportunities for us, making it safer to live in the neighborhoods around Mercer, but it's also sort of bringing the community back to life," said Wozniak.

The Master Plan for the corridor has been in progress since 2008, and there's about 18 more months of improvements to go.